#le crew

[miloscat]

[Review] Butterflies: Episode 1-3 (PC)

They understand the concept of love.

After Bomb Rush Cyberfunk wowed me, I wanted to take a second look at this even more indie project memorialising Jet Set Radio. I've played Episode 1 (and some pre-release demos) before but since then, French lead dev Le Capitaine and their Le Crew have finalised Episodes 2 and 3, and published them to Steam as a bundle. Supposedly it's still to be continued but for now the team is hard at work on an F-Zero homage. Hopefully they come back and keep expanding this because what's there so far is really good!

Rather than using JSRF as a jumping off point for gameplay, Butterflies seems to prefer refining what the original JSR was doing. This means a more realistic sense of inertia, and managing the momentum of your crew of inline-skating delinquents. The dash button is there to pick up speed on the ground and grinding rails is not effortless. It's clearly set on improving the clunky play control of the Dreamcast game though, and the result is fast, technical, and satisfying... when you've put some time into mastering it.

To get you there is a low-pressure kind of game design with a set of missions that populate the large levels. You can roam around, tackling them and finding tag spots as you please without a timer ticking down, which on its own is a big step up from JSR for me. These tasks are usually races that pass through checkpoints or specific line runs that require keeping a combo going—some in Episode 1 are particularly strict—while Episode 3 adds in extra graffiti challenges. Going through the checklist is a nice way of showing off these urban sandbox levels as you hunt for write spots or (as of Episode 2 onwards) collectible music tracks.

Each episode has one map to itself while advancing the overall story. The first two are hilly suburban areas, with a bit of industrial in E1, and E3 features a sprawling inner-city area connected by train tracks. Powerlines to grind on and the ability to wallgrind on almost any wall if you have enough speed help you traverse the high degree of verticality built into these zones. The first two episodes have an interesting grungy, sketchy look while the third revamps things with more colour and shiny detail. Populating the maps are your typical low-poly NPCs (I spotted some modelled on Lammy and Parappa!) as well as bear-hugging cops, flying police drones, and zap-projectile-slinging cameras: as of E3, these can all be dealt with by a quick application of spray paint (which by the way is unlimited).

The story is handled a bit more seriously than in some other street punk simulators. In this near-future world, a Japanese city has seceded and is now run as an independent autocracy by one General Sakamoto, and by the end of E3 the rebellious Nat and her growing Butterflies crew are gearing up to rise above petty rudie squabbles and vandalism to really fight back against the fascism. The inclusion of real-world cultures and concerns keeps the tone grounded, like when one of your teammates Jae (who tags in Hangeul) comments on the treatment of Korean immigrants; another, Zinnie, wears a hijab and interjects in Arabic, while Rin is a trans girl and you follow her journey of self-discovery in dialogue which I thought was handled pretty well.

On top of their characterisation in cutscene dialogue, these touchstones make the characters deeper and more relatable, more than just a cool cel-shaded character design. They also for the most part have clear strengths in their stat distributions; I favoured speed specialist Zinnie for getting around. Each one has distinct graffiti designs (they all get a refresh in E3 as well) that, while simple, usually include their name (in katakana) and tell you something about their personality. Writing involves a three-stage timing-based minigame so everyone has three unique designs, although you might find you end up with the simplest "bare minimum" one all over just to save time with the ~200 spots per map.

Since Butterflies has been released episodically over five years, it's interesting to watch as the new instalments make changes and become more polished. It's still rough around the edges even as of E3 but solid enough, and this release structure gives me hope that even more refinements will be implemented going forward (a better in-game map would be nice!). Either way, I've enjoyed what's there so far, and it's refreshing that multiple projects have been springing up in this vein while having their own character: in this case a little bit subdued, down to earth, but it's got heart.

[sibmakesart]

shanks has a Tabac in Croix-Rousse (get it ? Shanks le Roux. à croix rousse. get it.)

il fait un prix a sanji sur ses cigarettes apres quil apprends quil est devenu pote avec luffy

[cringefail-clown]

ive decided to polish out the coffeshop college au from this post so heres the lineup of the crew from Colors and Mayhem: Cafe and Pub lmfao

so in this au hal's a biomedical engineering major in the area of neural engineering, working part time in a cafe&pub combo owned by callie and cal - fraternal twins who cannot stand each other but made a co-owned business bc theyd not survive on their own in this economy (they couldnt agree if they wanted a calm little coffee spot for studying and meeting friends (callies idea) or an older university partygoers hot spot (cal) so they combined the two into the unhinged mess that it is)

besides hal, theres: equius, engineering student who breaks shit all the time but theyre understaffed as it is so no one fired him yet; damara, a psychology major with the goal of becoming sexologist and gamzee. nobody knows what gamzees doing here

basically its pure chaos all the time

[lesansnom]

Marco the FUCKING pénix

[asparklethatisblue]

Just keep the morning a bay a little longer.

@swanfloatieknight wrote this lovely Fitzier fic “Sîne Klâwen” based on middle high german poetry conventions, of having a watchman warn two lovers that dawn has come ☺️

[bettertoadthandead]

Low poly pigeons 🕊

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

[saints-who-never-existed]

Y'know, as much as I want to see multiple episodes-worth of everyday friendship things and Beach(y)-episode nonsense, I have to admit that my train of thought today was actually inspired more by the thought of The Lads (TM) clashing.

More specifically, it came from remembering this gem of a scene from that very earliest pilot script in which it's not Irving who reprimands Manson for his refusal to enter the hold but Dundy (who is also described in the script as "impatient and shrill")

Isn't that just so fascinating?! Le Vesconte actively displaying callousness and poor judgement right from the get-go? Gore even being a bit antagonistic in the way he belittles Dundy as he leaves? It's such a fascinating thing to me and it changes everything!

[mllenugget]

I have only one word and one word only : CRI CRI CRI CRI CRI CRI CRI CRI CRI

"I intended to skip Purgatory 2 to catch up faster on VODs since I was told they were unrelated lore-wise But my biggest mistake was to vibe check all the new players - I was not expecting to completely fall head over heels for Team Capybara, hot damn I love them all so much ????" - Me, February 2024

────────────────────────────────────────── Support all the admins that spoke out (& do your daily click) ──────────────────────────────────────────

I took @sunshinetomioka's werewolf Guill headcanon and ran with it btw, credit to it

[misfortuneblade]

Nami losing it over Vivi is my roman empire. She is so in love with her!!!

Put a thing for spoiler in case but Namivivi 1088

[jensonsbuttons]

ferrari rn

[mildcicada]

If you surrendered to the air you could ride it.!!! .....I give up, I surrender etc.

[ssreeder]

[sadpurpleblood]

short dangerous man versus giant more dangerous man

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

You've done transmac cars, what about transfem?

I've indeed done transmasc cars, so sure, what's the point in pretending I'm better than that.

As explained in the post above, I feel like for a car to be trans it has to have undergone an aesthetic transformation of some sort - so this post will be about cars that changed face (before to the left, after to the right).

While some voted it most transmasc car of the post and it literally started off with a female name, I actually think the Onevia looks a bit more transfem to me (that's one sentence for the "how did my life end up here" folder).

But there's one more front end alteration with its own name these cars have under their belt.

Enter Mitsuoka, a small Japanese car manufacturer that mostly specializes in taking cars that just aren't weird enough and solving that problem. Indeed, they worked on that Silvia too, turning it into the Mitsuoka Le-Seyde - but I'd rather show you the newer version, based on the last Silvia generation, because I feel like the contrast it offers is genuinely unmatched.

Yep.

And I know what you're thinking - where in the absolute pants did they get this idea? Oh, you're gonna love this one: from Zimmer, an American company founded in the 80s to do exactly that to the Mustang!

Zimmer went bankrupt in '88.

And then was bought up by Art Zimmer (no prior relation) and did the exact same thing to the newer Mustang!

and to the Town car!

Zimmer ceased production again in 2020. "Why?", I cannot fathom anyone wondering. Well, simple: they made the silly mistake of not being in Japan, where Mitsuoka is still thriving doing stuff like this.

Also, speaking of Mitsuoka, you really need to see what they ended up with when they put their hands on the Honda NSX platform (creating a concept that however would reach production as a fully unique car).

And if you thought this couldn't get any better, the two cars above are called, respectively, Galue and Orochi. Wow.

To finish, I would like to submit one I'm not sure can compete but I like too much not to mention: the Pit Crew nose kit for the first generation Mazda Miata!

And of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't include the inspiration for the Dias Classic (which annoyingly seems to have a sweep going on for itself in the poll), the Subaru Vivio Bistro.

And as a treat for y'all, I found one modified in bosozoku style.

I don't believe this poll deserves a larger sample size, but you can reblog this post if like me you think it would at least be really funny.

Links in blue are posts of mine explaining the words in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

[homestuck-book-club]

MSPFA ERA ACT 2!!!

I am still far away on the opposite side of the planet so we will not be beginning the MSPFA era act 2 until the 17th of June, however I wanted to announce in advance so you guys know!

The first two of these are listed as an interlude as they are not MSPFAS, but other works by Andrew Hussie that people wanted to read!

Interlude >Psycholonials >Problem Sleuth Act 2 >Be the Seadweller Lowblood >LE: unmerge >Godfeels >Universe Leapfrog, an Infinitely Incomplete Anthology of the Adventures of Silverbark Harley the Worldwalker and Her Trusty Sidekick, Davepetasprite

If you wanna read this stuff with us, join our discord here!

[beardedmrbean]